The
AEJ takes part in the policy work of the Council of Europe(CoE)
on key issues of media freedom as a participant in the Steering
Committee on Media and Information Society and the Platform to Promote
the Protection of Journalism and the Safety of Journalists.It works on behalf of its members
across Europe to hold the CoE and its 47 member states to their commitments
on media freedom and freedom of expression.

The Platform went live on 2 April
2015 and was formally presented
to the public on 19 May. In those seven weeks, 47 alerts had been submitted
and some responses had already been given. By the end of the year, the number
of alerts had risen to 107, 53 government responses had been received and the
first four cases had been closed.

More broadly,
the AEJ has challenged member states to put aside narrow state interests to
better protect the lives and rights of journalists who work to hold power to
account. The CoE's Committee of
Ministers acknowledged the threat to European democracy that stems from
restrictions on press freedom in its

Already in 2009, AEJ Media
Freedom Representative William Horsley wrote the Respect
for Media Freedom Report for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe (PACE), chronicling the killings of 20 journalists in the previous
three years and a widespread pattern of violence and abuse of state power
directed at journalists because of their work.

Governments failed to fulfil
their pledge at the 2009 Ministerial Conference in Reykjavik to review anti-terrorism laws and
practices to ensure compliance with Council of Europe norms and standards.
Many journalists are being unlawfully prosecuted and jailed because
state secrecy and terrorism laws are misused for political purposes in CoE
member states. They have now committed themselves to comply with the European
Convention through a new set of political commitments (Recommendation
of 14 April 2016).

The explicit protest of many of
the world's leading human rights
organisations thus continues to be ignored. That heavy responsibility rests
with member states.

The AEJ supports other CoE campaigns, including anti-discrimination in the media (since
2009). William Horsley and Zdenko Duka (Croatia)
have taken part in meetings on related themes.

The news to the right on this page will keep our records up to date
with developments.

Anniversary of the ECHR

William Horsley's message to the British Institute of Human Rights on 3
September 2013:

The 60th anniversary of the Convention should
indeed be celebrated by people across Europe and beyond, and it should be an
occasion to counter a lot of hostile and ignorant attacks on the Convention
itself, as well as the Court of Human Rights and its work. It is a good time
to recall that the Court’s rulings have helped Britain to improve its
patchy human rights record on issues where political or popular opinion had
seemed implacably opposed to change, like banning corporal punishment and
sweeping stop and search powers for the police.

Recent events in the UK as well as elsewhere
have shown again that the Strasbourg court is an absolutely vital safeguard
against attempts by the state – including in the UK – to exceed its
legitimate powers in matters of justice and security. Journalists
should especially be mindful that rulings of the ECtHR have strengthened
their legal rights to investigate and disclose injustices – from the Sunday Times'sthalidomide ruling in
the 1970s to other landmark cases giving protection to journalists when
reporting matters of public interest or resisting the demands of courts to
reveal confidential sources. The Convention and the Court are one of the few
defences against the worst kinds of injustice and abuse of state power, many
of which we are witnessing in the present day, and which today’s political
leaders are often proving themselves too weak and shallow to take action
against.

News

Some
of these items also appear in News/Events.
All are transferred to News
Archive at the end of the year following publication

6 May: AEJ section events to mark 3
May as World Press Freedom Day 2016 were plannned across Europe (www.aej.org). Reports of
those held are being published on www.aej.org. AEJ Turkey took
part as a member of the G-9 Platform, Freedom for Journalists (www.aej.org)

29 April: International criticism is
mounting against Azerbaijan’s prosecution of 15 journalists, including
Khadija Ismailova and Shyrin Abassov, for tax evasion and illegal
enterpreneurship. They were working for Meydan TV, an independent online
media outlet based in Berlin but with a local news bureau. See www.aej.org

26 April: A growing number of foreign
journalists are being denied entry, banned from entering Turkey or deported.
GOP, the Turkish Freedom for Journalists Platform to which AEJ Turkey
belongs, has lodged a protest. See www.aej.org

14 April: The AEJ hailed the new set
of political commitments to protect journalism and the safety of journalists
adopted by the Council of Europe on 13 April. See www.aej.org, the text of the recommendation
and the Council of Europe press
release. (14 April 2016)

10 March: On 4 March, Turkey’s Freedom for Journalists Platform
united in condemning the government’s seizure of the Zaman newspaper: “Such acts are not seen in democracies.” The
Platform includes the AEJ, which published the following statement:

On [4 March] the Turkish authorities seized the Istanbul headquarters
offices of Zaman, Turkey’s largest
circulation newspaper and one of the most outspokenly critical voices in the
Turkish media. The action was taken on the basis of a court decision which
failed to provide any proper evidence to justify taking the newspaper into
forced administration. The Association of European Journalists (AEJ) condemns
this blatant attack on press freedom. The authorities‘ abuse of Turkey’s
anti-terrorism laws to brand the work of journalists and other critical
voices as assisting terrorism is absurd and must be ended at once.

The Turkish government’s
actions in arbitrarily arresting and imprisoning
dozens of journalists, and interfering in the management and editorial
policies of media organisaions, contradict Turkey’s international commitments
and undermines its claims to be considered as a democracy.

The seizure of the premises of Zaman with the use of massive police
force came only three days before the EU leaders‘ summit with Turkey. The AEJ
expects the European Union and the governments of its member states to
forcefully condemn the seizure of Zaman
and to demand that Turkey should stop the widespread judicial harassment and
other attacks on press freedom, free all members of the media wrongly held in
detention, and drop the ongoing criminal cases against numerous editors and
journalists.

Otmar Lahodynsky, AEJ President

Tibor Macak, AEJ Secretary General

William Horsley, AEJ Vice-President
and Representative for Media Freedom

10 March: A hasty reform of the
legislation governing the heavily indebted public sector broadcasting
organisation has raised AEJ concerns.

13 January: The European Commission
announced a preliminary assessment of the rule of law in Poland in light of
the changes made to the Constitutional Court’s statute. While well aware of
the media law and its potential to erode legal freedoms, the priority is to
ensure that the judicial system is capable of enforcing them.

11 January: Polish President Andrzej
Duda signed the media bill into law on 7 January. Thorbjørn Jagland,
Secretary General of the Council of Europe, had asked him to open
a dialogue with the Council on article 10 ECHR before signing the bill.
See aej.org. Austria’s Die Presse has published the AEJ’s
open letter to the Polish President. See aej.org

5 January 2016: A summary of AEJ action on
the Polish law on public service broadcasting by the Media Freedom
Representative.

29 December: The AEJ has written an open letter to the new Polish
government to abandon its proposal to place public service broadcasting under
direct government control. See aej.org

9 December: An international
declaration was published calling on governments to take decisive action
to end murders and violent attacks directed at journalists. It was proposed
by the IPI and backed by many in or representing the media, including the
AEJ. See aej.org

10 November: An exceptionally
successful AEJ Congress was held on 6-7 November in Sibiu, Romania. The
generosity of the Romanian Section as hosts is deeply appreciated by all,
particularly as it is only four years since it last undertook this burdensome
task. A comprehensive report
of the congress by Firdevs Robinson appears on the AEJ’s international
website, as does a report
by David Barker that focuses on corruption. The dangers currently facing
Europe are analysed by Anthony
Robinson, former Eastern Europe Editor of the FT, in an article inspired
by the debates at Sibiu. Media freedom reports by the AEJ sections are
accessible on the Survey page
on this site, and further documents are being added to this page and the News and AEJ in Europe pages as they
become available. Please also watch the international website’s News page for further
developments.

31 October: The Annual Congress will
be held on 6-7 November in Sibiu, Romania. We are again be indebted to the
Romanian Section for hosting this year’s event, only four years since it last
undertook this burdensome task. Media freedom reports by the AEJ sections in
Armenia, Ireland and Ukraine are available from aej.org and on Bulgaria from aej.org (27 October, 2
November 2015)

10 September: The AEJ has expressed
its solidarity with Hürriyet, the
Turkish daily. On 8 September, its Ankara offices were attacked for a second
time by a group of AKP and Erdogan supporters protesting against the paper’s
reporting of the recent deaths of Turkish troops at the hands of the PKK. See
aej.org

3 September: The AEJ joined other
press freedom advocates in calling for a swift reversal of the conviction of
Khadiya Ismayilova in Baku of various crimes of dishonesty and corruption and
her 7½-year prison sentence. This politically motivated case has been
followed on the new Council of Europe platform. See aej.org

2 September: Raids on opposition
media, the arrest of a VICE News team and threat of further repressive action
before Turkey’s election on 1 November have raised international protests.
AEJ member Firdevs Robinson reports on this in Firdevs
talks Turkey. See aej.org

1 September: Аn abrupt change in the
regulations on who is able to carry a Turkish press card triggered strong
reaction from the country’s professional journalists’ organisations.
Journalist members of the committee that decides on eligibility were not
consulted. The TGC journalists’ association and TGS union, withdrew their
members: “There is no sense for us in remaining as extras.” See aej.org

2 August: New proposals for European
governments to safeguard journalists from violence, intimidation and
harassment were presented by the AEJ’s Media Freedom Representative to the 2
July meeting at the Italian Senate (below).
They urge open accountable government and stronger adherence to human rights
principles. See aej.org (2
August 2015)

2 August: Support for the work of
Ossigeno, the media freedom organisation, was pledged at a meeting in the
Italian Senate on 2 July. The Mafia’s threats of violence go largely
unreported, but as many as 30 journalists live under permanent police
protection. Ossigeno is working with the parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission.
See aej.org (2 August 2015)

21 June: On 16 June, the Grand
Chamber unanimously upheld an Estonian court ruling that an online news
portal could not plead freedom of expression to escape liability for allowing
defamatory or otherwise unlawful comments to be posted by readers. The AEJ
joined the Media Legal Defence Initiative in expressing dismay at the ruling
of the European Court of Human Rights. See aej.org

11 June: AEJ President, Otmar
Lahodynsky, has published a critique of the draft EU directive on trade
secrets – a term that normally means proprietary knowhow. By extending legal
liability to anyone publishing any secret business information obtained
through a breach of confidentiality, it would seriously hamper investigative
journalism. See aej-bulgaria.org

25 May: In the first six weeks, 50 alerts
were posted on the Council of Europe’s new platform for the protection of
journalism and the safety of journalists. It was presented
to the press in Brussels on 19 May by CoE Secretary General Thorbjorn
Jagland. He also published the annual State of Human Rights in Europe report
on that day. For the AEJ’s intervention, see aej.org

8 May: The AEJ has expressed its
dismay at amendments to the draft
directive on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business
information. By restricting disclosure of internal company information, it
could hinder investigative journalism into corporate conduct. See aej.org

20 April: The AEJ has called on the
government of Ukraine to investigate the contract-style killing of Oles
Buzyna, a pro-Russian, on 16 April. Buzyna was a former editor of Segodyna. Three other recent killings
that call for proper investigation include two journalists (Sergey Sukhobok
and Olga Moroz) and a former MP (Oleg Kalashnikov). See aej.org

15 April: The Association of European
Journalists has expressed its grave concern about gratuitous verbal abuse and
mockery directed against Romanian journalists Stelian Negrea and his wife,
Eli Roman, by employees of the Antena 3 TV channel. See aej.org

2 April 2015: The Council of Europe’s
online reporting facility for threats to journalists and their safety was launched
on 2 April. It can be viewed here
(scroll down past the photograph). See 28 November 2014 below and aej.org

26 February 2015: The Council of
Europe's Parliamentary Assembly adopted a new resolution
on 29 January calling on various European countries, including the EU, to
remedy violations of press freedom and fulfil their obligations to protect
journalists. See aej.org

7 January 2015: The AEJ expressed
horror at the barbaric murders in
Paris at Charlie Hebdo – the most bloody attack ever against French
journalists and press freedom. It joined the French Section in expressing its
deep condolence and solidarity with the victims' families and Charlie Hebdo's
staff. See aej.org